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Employers and the recruitment of young people (16-18 year olds): An evidence review
BriefingPaper
August 2011
Employers and the recruitment of young people (16-18 year olds): An evidence review
Chris Hasluck
Hasluck Employment Research
Josie Armitage
UK Commission for Employment and Skills
Briefing Paper August 2011
Views expressed by the author of this Briefing Paper are not necessarily those of the UK Commission for Employment and Skills.
iii
Table of Contents
Executive Summary ............................................................................................ vi
Introduction .......................................................................................................................... vi
Key findings .......................................................................................................................... vi
1 Introduction .................................................................................................. 1
1.1 Background to the review ....................................................................................... 1
1.2 Aim and objectives ................................................................................................... 1
2 Young people and the transition from education to employment ........... 3
2.1 Introduction .............................................................................................................. 3
2.2 The extent of recruitment of 16-18 year olds......................................................... 3
2.3 Who recruited 16-18 year olds? .............................................................................. 5
2.4 To what kind of jobs are young people recruited? ............................................... 8
2.5 What skills have young people to offer employers? ............................................ 8
2.6 The incidence of worklessness amongst young people ...................................... 9
2.7 ‘Churn’ in the ‘youth’ job market .......................................................................... 10
2.8 Key characteristics of the 16-18 year old job market ......................................... 13
3 Employers and the recruitment process ................................................. 14
3.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................ 14
3.2 When do employers recruit? ................................................................................. 14
3.3 What do employers want? ..................................................................................... 15
3.4 Recruitment methods ............................................................................................ 18
4 Recruiting young people ........................................................................... 19
4.1 Recruitment practices and young people............................................................ 19
4.2 Young people and the recession .......................................................................... 19
4.3 Employer perceptions of young people ............................................................... 21
4.4 The impact of employers’ recruitment practices on young peoples’ employment opportunities .................................................................................... 24
4.4.1 Recruitment channels ............................................................................................ 24
4.4.2 Selection procedures ............................................................................................. 25
4.4.3 Temporary work, work experience placements and internship ........................ 27
4.5 Improving recruitment practices .......................................................................... 29
5 Employer engagement with the education and training system ........... 31
5.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................ 31
5.2 What is meant by employer engagement with education? ................................ 31
5.3 The benefits of, and limits to, employer-education links ................................... 32
iv
5.4 Employer engagement with other forms of support for young people ............ 34
6 References ................................................................................................. 36
v
Table of Graphs and Charts
Figure 2.1 Recruitment of young people, England 2009 ........................................................ 3
Table 2.1 Economic status of currently employed young people 12 months earlier, by age group: UK, 2010 Q4 .......................................................................................... 4
Table 2.2 Employment of young people by sector and age group: UK, 2010 Q4 .............. 6
Table 2.3 Employment of young people by employment status, UK, 2010 Q4 .................. 6
Table 2.4 Employment of young people by sector, status and reason for part-time employment, UK 2010 Q4 ........................................................................................ 7
Table 2.5 Occupations of young people by employment status, UK, 2010 Q4 .................. 8
Table 2.6 Level of highest qualification, 16-18 year olds in employment, UK, 2010 Q4 ... 9
Figure 2.2 ILO unemployment rate by age group, UK, 2004-2010 ...................................... 10
Table 2.7 Duration of unemployment spell, 16-18 year olds, UK, 2010 Q4 ...................... 11
Figure 3.1 Attributes employers look for in recruits, UK 2010 ............................................ 16
Figure 4.1 Work readiness of young recruits by proportion of employers recruiting young people, England, 2009 ............................................................................... 23
vi
Executive Summary
Introduction
The recent recession in the UK has highlighted once more the vulnerability of young job
seekers to changes in economic conditions. New entrants to the job market will always
be vulnerable to cyclical downturns in the demand for labour but the impact of the
recession may be compounding longer-term, underlying structural changes in the ‘youth
labour market’ as well as patterns of employer recruitment behaviour that disadvantages
young people. Public policy has a role to play in facilitating the entry of young people into
employment and their progression within work. To be effective in this regard, public
policy must be informed by an appreciation of employers’ recruitment practices regarding
young people and the role that skill and qualifications play in that recruitment process.
This review provides the evidence regarding these important issues.
Key findings
The key findings from the review were as follows.
Only a very small proportion of employers recruit 16-18 year olds directly from school
or college, although a greater number recruit 16-18 year olds from unemployment or
other employers.
Much of the recruitment of 16-18 year olds is of students to part-time jobs. The
proportion of the 16-18 age cohort recruited to full-time jobs is comparatively low.
Where young people entered full-time employment they tended to enter skilled
manual trades (25 per cent), personal service occupations (19 per cent) or
elementary occupations (19 per cent). Around 12 per cent of full-time jobs for young
people were in administrative and secretarial jobs. Part-time employment of young
people, unlike those in full-time work, is dominated by jobs in sales and customer
service occupations (45 per cent) and elementary occupations (38 per cent).
16-18 year olds who have entered employment (excluding full-time students) are
much better qualified than those who are unemployed or inactive. A majority (64 per
cent) of 16-18 year olds in employment held qualifications at NQF Level 2 or above.
This suggests either that employers have selected the best qualified or that the best
qualified possess other characteristics that employer want.
Unemployment amongst young people is relatively high but normally of short
duration, suggesting it is a transitional state between education and job, or between
one job and another. The cyclical sensitivity of youth unemployment suggests a link
to employer recruitment behaviour.
vii
The reluctance of some employers to recruit young people stems from a perception
that their employment is a risk and a potential burden on their business. Negative
perceptions see 16-18 years olds as unable to make a productive contribution from
the start of their employment (perhaps because of a lack of basic skills) or as lacking
the right attitudes, motivation and ability to learn required to progress in the business.
Employers commonly use of informal channels (such as word of mouth and
recommendations) when recruiting to entry level jobs. The use of informal methods
has increased as the job market has weakened during the recession. Informal
recruitment channels disadvantage young people because they are centred on the
workplace and the social networks surrounding an existing workforce. Young people
seeking work have only a limited awareness or access to such networks thus limiting
the job opportunities open to them. Such channels are also unfair as access to
employment depends more on family connections than upon ability.
Employers use a range of criteria to select applicants for entry level jobs. These
criteria often emphasise attitudes and motivation over experience and qualification.
In a recession, however, employers may raise their hiring standards and require more
experience and higher qualifications than previously. This tends to disadvantage 16-
18 year olds who, as new entrants to the job market, lack prior work experience and
may hold only low level qualifications.
Job prospects for young people could be improved if employers were to adopt more
formal human resource practices that made indirect, or unintentional, discrimination
less likely. Unprofessional recruitment and selection methods lead to poor matches
between recruits and jobs and are inefficient for the business and can lead to the
confirmation of negative perceptions on both sides. More efficient matching would
lead to longer-term and successful employment relations and promote more positive
perceptions of young people.
Employers are making greater use of work placements and work trials in order to
reduce the perceived risk of recruiting and employing a 16-18 year old. Work
experience placements, internships or training places such as apprenticeships all
provide employers with an opportunity to evaluate a young person in the workplace
without a longer-term commitment to employ them.
Employers can engage with the education and training system at a number of levels.
In general, employers can be regarded as ‘consumers’ when they hire young people
who leave school or college, as stakeholders when they provide leadership through
their involvement in the design, development, management, delivery and assessment
of learning, and as strategic partners when there is sustained interaction between
viii
employers and education institutions.
Employers can gain from engagement in terms of reduced recruitment costs where
an employer has relationships with selected schools or colleges by which selected
young people are directed towards the employer for possible recruitment, if
opportunities are organised to try out potential young recruits (for instance through
work placements. Employers also gain from engagement if it helps close the gap
between their business needs and schools and college provision. Employers gain
from greater productivity, lower turnover, reduced training and supervision cost as the
result of better matches between recruits and the needs of their businesses.
Any benefits from engagement need to be set against the costs of achieving such
links. Engagement is time consuming. The cost of identifying potential points of
engagement (such as specific schools or colleges), the staff time involved in liaising
and working with them, any financial costs involved in work placements all need to be
taken into account. These costs need to be considered in the context of existing
recruitment practices that are low cost to employers, even if disadvantaging young job
seekers.
Educational institutions also need to engage with employers. Contrasting cultures
and a failure mainstream business education can limit effective engagement. The
complexity of the educational system and its frequent changes, mean that employers
often face difficulty identifying ‘who does what’ within the system and within individual
institutions. Where links are established they often depend on interpersonal
relationships that are vulnerable to staff turnover.
The constraints on business-education links are greater for small enterprises than for
large organisations. Small businesses often face greater barriers in terms of the
knowledge within the business of school and college providers, while the process of
forming links between a small business and education providers can be
disproportionately time consuming.
Both the recruitment process and employer-education engagement needs to be seen
in the context of a business community that, while very supportive of the need to help
young people into work, nonetheless see little or no role for the State in supporting
the recruitment process. Bringing about improvements in the job opportunities for
young people is about changing the ‘hearts and minds’ of employers and, that type of
change takes time and considerable effort to achieve.
1
1 Introduction
1.1 Background to the review
The recent recession in the UK has highlighted once more the vulnerability of young job
seekers to changes in economic conditions. The unemployment rate of 16-24 year olds
in the UK has continued to rise since the onset of the recession in 2007 and currently
stands at 19.3 per cent1. Younger groups (16-19 year olds) have fared even worse with
their unemployment rate increasing to 27.0 per cent, or a total of over 405 thousand
unemployed 16-19 year olds.
New entrants to the job market will always be vulnerable to cyclical downturns in the
demand for labour but the impact of the recession may be compounding longer-term,
underlying structural changes in the ‘youth labour market’ as well as patterns of employer
recruitment behaviour that disadvantage young people. These underlying changes
include new patterns of labour demand that impact upon the volume of ‘entry level’ jobs
and the skills/qualifications that employers require of recruits, while supply-side changes
include a massive expansion in the number of young people remaining in education
beyond compulsory school age together with a fall in the number, and some employers
would argue the quality, of 16-18 year old school leavers.
Public policy has a role to play in facilitating the entry of young people into employment
and their progression within work. It is a priority for the UK Commission to work with
employers to help align the education and training with business needs and to help
prepare young people for employment and career progression. To be effective in this
regard, such public policy must be informed by an appreciation of employers’ recruitment
practices regarding young people and the role that skill and qualifications play in that
recruitment process. This proposal is for a review of evidence regarding these important
issues.
The evidence review was carried out by Hasluck Employment Research on behalf of the
UK Commission for Employment and Skills.
1.2 Aim and objectives
The aim of the review was to collate and assess recent evidence on employers’ attitudes
and recruitment practices in regard to young people. Specifically, the review examined
evidence relating to the recruitment of young people (with a focus wherever possible on
16–18 year olds), what employers are looking for from young recruits and the extent to
which young people meet those requirements. It also considered the extent to which
1 Source: Labour Force Survey, Fourth Quarter, 2010.
2
employers feel well served by the current education and training system and are engaged
with it, for instance through involvement in the design and provision of education and
training, offers of work placement/experience or internships, entry to work training or
other support to young people and young recruits.
In reviewing the evidence, the review will seek answers to a number of research
questions including:
Which employers recruit or do not recruit young people (16 – 18 year olds)?
What do employers look for when recruiting young people?
What are the barriers to recruiting young people?
To what extent do employers feel that the current education and training system
prepares young people for work?
To what extent are businesses engaged with the education/training system and
what might strengthen such links?
What actions (and by whom) would help facilitate greater recruitment of young
people?
The evidence review drew on a range of sources including (but not limited to):
Official statistics accessed on-line via NOMIS and the National Statistical Office
Journal and other academic publications,
Official reports and evaluations (including that of the UK Commission, Department
for Education, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, Department for
Work and Pensions, Jobcentre Plus);
‘Grey’ literature consisting of unpublished material and working papers
Evidence was mainly be obtained via on-line sources but also included material (such as
unpublished working papers) provided by other experts in the field.
There is a substantial body of historical evidence relating to the recruitment of young
people. This review sought wherever possible to focus on evidence from the last five
years (2007 to date), partly to keep the review manageable and the report concise, but
also as a response to the sense that the current economic and employment context may
be somewhat different to that of the past. Nonetheless, where appropriate, reference is
made to evidence from an earlier period where it is especially significant.
3
2 Young people and the transition from education to employment
2.1 Introduction
This chapter provides some recent evidence relating to the position of young people (16-
18 year olds) in the job market. By definition, young people in the 16-18 year age range
will either be in full-time education or have recently made the transition from full-time
education and training to another economic status, either employment or inactivity
outside of education and training. According to the Labour Force Survey, there were
estimated to be around 2,311,745 young people in the UK aged 16-18 years of age. Of
these, more than half (56 per cent) were ‘inactive’ (mainly in education), 31 per cent were
in employment and 13 per cent were unemployed on the ILO definition. The focus of this
review is on the 44 per cent of the 16-18 year old age group who had been recruited to a
job or who were actively seeking and available for employment.
2.2 The extent of recruitment of 16-18 year olds
The Wolf Report (Wolf, 2011) pointed out that whereas there were many jobs for young
people two decades ago, the great majority of 16-18 year olds now participate in full-time
education. Employment for that age group is now substantially less and, as a
consequence, has also changed in character from employment in the past. The extent of
recruitment of young people, and 16-17 year olds in particular, is shown in Figure 2.1
derived from data collected by the National Employers Skill Survey (NESS2009). The
data relates to young people recruited directly from education and covers only England.
Figure 2.1 Recruitment of young people, England 2009
Source: National Employers Skills Survey, 2009
23%
6%
11%
0
5
10
15
20
25
Recruited anyone aged under 24 direct from
school, college or university
Recruited any 16 year olds direct from school
Recruited any 17 or 18 year olds direct from
school/college
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The NESS2009 shows that, in the 12 months prior to the survey, just under a quarter of
employers (23 per cent) in England had recruited a young person (defined in the broadest
sense, i.e. aged less than 24 years) directly from full-time education (school, college or
university). The proportion of employers recruiting 16 or 17 year olds from school or
college was, however, much lower at just 6 per cent and 11 per cent respectively. This
was little different from in earlier surveys.
Not all young people are recruited directly from education. Indeed, only 22 per cent of
employers recruited a young person directly from education, while the comparable
proportion was just under 6 per cent for 16 year olds and just over 10 per cent for 17-18
year olds (UKCES, 2010). Many young recruits are already in employment or have left
education but not entered employment (the so-called NEETs: Not in Employment,
Education or Training). Table 2.1 provides some insight into the extent of such
recruitment. It shows the economic status of 16-18 year olds 12 months prior to the
survey and who were in employment (excluding full-time students in part-time jobs) at the
time of the survey. This is not a true measure of transitions or recruitment but such
transitions can be inferred in many cases (for instance where the employee was
previously unemployed or in full-time education).
Table 2.1 Economic status of currently employed young people 12 months earlier, by age group: UK, 2010 Q4
Per cent
Age
16 17 18 Total
Working in paid job or business 14.7 37.9 59.6 48.9
Unemployed, actively seeking work 6.6 9.7 7.7 8.3
Special government t scheme 1.8 1.5 1.5
Full time student 76.1 48.7 29.8 39.7
Looking after family or home 0.4 0.2
Temporarily sick or injured 0.7 0.2
None of these 2.6 1.1 1.1 1.2
Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0
Source: Labour Force Survey, 2010
Unsurprisingly, three quarters (76 per cent) of 16 year olds were in education but this
proportion decreases with age to just 30 per cent of 18 year olds. Correspondingly the
proportion that was previously in employment increases from 15 per cent of 16 year olds
to 60 per cent of 18 year olds. Overall, around 10 per cent of those in employment had
previously been unemployed or on a government scheme.
5
2.3 Who recruited 16-18 year olds?
Table 2.2 sets out the pattern of employment of 16-18 year olds by industrial sector in the
UK at the end of 2010. This provides an indication of which employers have recruited
from this age group. While Table 2.2 distinguishes employment patterns by age there is
little difference in terms of the sectors in which young people were employed, with the
minor exceptions of areas such as transport, utilities, financial services and quarrying.
The latter sectors are likely to be ones where regulations and legal requirements mean
that jobs require a minimum age or some form of licence.
Table 2.2 suggests that the young people are predominantly recruited to just two main
sectors: wholesale, retail & repair of motor vehicles and accommodation & food services.
These two sectors accounted for almost 63 per cent of all employment of 16-18 year olds.
A further 11 per cent are employed in two other sectors: arts, entertainment & recreation
and other service activities. It is, however, important to note that many of the jobs in
these sectors are part-time jobs. In contrast, full-time jobs for young people tend to be
more evenly spread across the sectors with 11 per cent in manufacturing, 20 per cent in
construction, just 16 per cent in wholesale, retail & repair of motor vehicles and just 8 per
cent in accommodation & food services (see Table 2.3 below).
A key question concerning the employment of young people is whether their employment
in part-time jobs is a choice that allows them to combine employment and education or is
a forced choice because they cannot obtain a full-time job. Table 2.4 shows the pattern
of employment according to employment status and, in the case of part-time employment,
the reason for taking a part-time job. The table indicates very clearly that the majority (68
per cent) of 16-18 year olds were recruited by employers to part-time jobs while students
in education and only a quarter (25 per cent) were working in full-time jobs. These
proportions do, however, vary greatly from sector to sector with only 12 per cent of 16-18
year olds students employed in the construction sector working part-time but as much as
86 per cent of the employment of 16-18 year olds in accommodation & food services
being students working on a part-time basis. Conversely, the majority of employment
was on a full-time basis in sectors such as manufacturing, utilities (gas, electricity, water,
waste etc.), financial & insurance activities, public administration & defence and other
services.
6
Table 2.2 Employment of young people by sector and age group: UK, 2010 Q4 Per cent
16 years 17 years 18 years Total
Agriculture, forestry and fishing 2.1 1.7 1.0 1.5
Mining and quarrying .3 .2
Manufacturing 1.8 4.0 3.8 3.6
Electricity, gas, air conditioning supply .2 .1
Water supply, sewerage, waste .2 .2 .2
Construction 5.0 4.9 6.9 5.9
Wholesale, retail, repair of vehicles 40.3 38.9 41.5 40.4
Transport and storage .9 1.5 1.0
Accommodation and food services 28.4 25.5 17.4 22.1
Information and communication 1.5 1.2 .8 1.1
Financial and insurance activities .7 1.4 .9
Real estate activities .5 .2 .4 .4
Professional, scientific, technical activities. 1.2 1.7 3.1 2.3
Administration and support services .4 1.7 1.6 1.5
Public administration and defence .5 1.6 1.4 1.3
Education 1.4 2.1 3.7 2.8
Health and social work 3.9 3.9 4.1 4.0
Arts, entertainment and recreation 8.0 4.8 7.0 6.4
Other service activities 4.1 5.7 3.6 4.4
Households as employers .8 .2 .2
All sectors 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0
Source: Labour Force Survey, 2010
Table 2.3 Employment of young people by employment status, UK, 2010 Q4 Per cent
Full-time Part-time Total
Agriculture, forestry and fishing 2.5 1.1 1.5
Mining and quarrying .6 .2
Manufacturing 11.3 1.0 3.6
Electricity, gas, air conditioning supply .3 .1
Water supply, sewerage, waste .7 .2
Construction 20.1 1.1 5.9
Wholesale, retail, repair of vehicles 16.0 48.7 40.4
Transport and storage 2.4 .6 1.0
Accommodation and food services 7.9 27.0 22.2
Information and communication .6 1.2 1.1
Financial and insurance activities 2.2 .5 .9
Real estate activities .7 .2 .4
Professional, scientific, technical activities. 4.5 1.5 2.3
Administrative and support services 1.6 1.4 1.5
Public administration and defence 4.0 .5 1.3
Education 2.9 2.7 2.8
Health and social work 7.3 2.9 4.0
Arts, entertainment and recreation 3.0 7.5 6.4
Other service activities 11.0 2.1 4.3
Households as employers .3 .2 .2
100.0 100.0 100.0
Source: Labour Force Survey, 2010
7
Table 2.4 Employment of young people by sector, status and reason for part-time employment, UK 2010 Q4 Per cent
Part-time: student
Part-time: could not find full-time job
Part-time: did not want full-time job Full-time
Agriculture, forestry and fishing 42.1 8.8 49.0 100.0
Mining and quarrying 100.0 100.0
Manufacturing 20.7 79.3 100.0
Electricity, gas, air conditioning supply 100.0 100.0
Water supply, sewerage, waste 100.0 100.0
Construction 12.1 1.4 86.4 100.0
Wholesale, retail, repair of vehicles 82.6 4.8 2.6 10.0 100.0
Transport and storage 28.7 14.3 57.0 100.0
Accommodation and food services 85.5 4.3 .7 9.1 100.0
Information and communication 78.7 7.5 13.8 100.0
Financial and insurance activities 28.5 9.1 62.5 100.0
Real estate activities 50.4 49.6 100.0
Professional, scientific, technical activities. 45.7 4.1 50.2 100.0
Administrative and support services 53.9 5.5 12.5 28.2 100.0
Public admin and defence 19.1 6.6 74.2 100.0
Education 56.8 10.3 6.1 26.8 100.0
Health and social work 42.9 6.5 4.5 46.1 100.0
Arts, entertainment and recreation 74.3 6.0 4.4 11.8 100.0
Other service activities 31.3 2.0 66.6 100.0
Households as employers 63.7 36.3 100.0
67.6 4.4 2.3 25.4 100.0
Source: Labour Force Survey, 2010, Quarter 4
8
2.4 To what kind of jobs are young people recruited?
The types of job to which 16-18 year olds are recruited depends very much on whether
the job in question is full-time or part-time. Table 2.5 reports the distribution of
occupations to which young people were recruited in 2010. As might be expected,
relatively few are recruited to managerial or professional jobs, almost certainly a
consequence of their recent entry to employment and their lack of higher level
qualifications.
Table 2.5 Occupations of young people by employment status, UK, 2010 Q4 Per cent
Full-time Part-time Total
Managers 1.9 0.1 0.5
Professionals 2.1 0.5 0.9
Associate professionals 7.4 2.6 3.8
Administration & secretarial 11.6 4.1 6.0
Skilled manual trades 24.6 2.5 8.1
Personal services 18.7 6.9 9.9
Sales & customer services 9.9 44.7 36.0
Semi-skilled operatives 4.8 0.9 1.8
Elementary jobs 19.1 37.7 33.0
100.0 100.0 100.0
Source: Labour Force Survey 2010
Where young people entered full-time employment they tended to enter skilled manual
trades (25 per cent), personal service occupations (19 per cent) or elementary
occupations that required only basic education or low levels of skills (19 per cent).
Around 12 per cent of full-time jobs for young people were in administrative and
secretarial jobs. Part-time employment of young people contrasts sharply with that of full-
time employment and is dominated by jobs in sales and customer service occupations
(45 per cent) and elementary occupations (38 per cent).
2.5 What skills have young people to offer employers?
Young people who have entered employment (excluding those in full-time education in
part-time jobs) are not poorly qualified. In fact, only around 7 per cent held no
qualifications, although 25 per cent held qualifications below NQF Level 2. The majority
of 16-18 year olds in employment (64 per cent) held qualifications at NQF Level 2 or
above.
9
Table 2.6 Level of highest qualification, 16-18 year olds in employment, UK, 2010 Q4
Per cent
Full time Part time All in employment
NQF Level 4 and above 3.6 2.5 3.3
NQF Level 3 12.2 19.7 13.8
Trade Apprenticeships 4.3 1.2 3.6
NQF Level 2 44.5 37.7 43.0
Below NQF Level 2 25.5 24.6 25.3
Other qualifications 3.9 1.6 3.4
No qualifications 6.1 12.6 7.5
Total 100.0 100.0 100.0
Source: Labour Force Survey 2010
It is striking to contrast the extent of qualifications amongst those in employment with
those 16-18 year olds who were unemployed or economically inactive (in both cases
excluding full-time students). Where 16-18 year olds were unemployed, around 20 per
cent were unqualified and 35 per cent qualified only at NQF Level 1. Where people in
that age group were economically inactive, the proportion that was unqualified increased
to 34 per cent while the proportion with only NQF Level 1 qualifications was 32 per cent.
This strongly suggests that those in employment are the most qualified of their age cohort
(excluding those who were in education). This could reflect a selection process by
employers when recruiting young people or, alternately, a self-selection process with
those who are best qualified also possessing greater drive and determination to obtain
employment.
2.6 The incidence of worklessness amongst young people
According to the Labour Force Survey there were an estimated 301,713 unemployed 16-
18 year olds on the ILO definition in late 2010. The ILO definition relates to people who
were actively seeking work and who thus represent part of the pool of potential recruits
from which employers can draw. The ILO definition, however, includes students who
were looking for work and excluding them reduces the number of wholly unemployed 16-
18 year olds outside of education to 135,787.
While the unemployment rate of young people is currently at an historically high level,
such unemployment rates are not unprecedented. Similarly high rates were experienced
in previous recessions (such as the early 1990s). Unemployment of young people is
particularly sensitive to cyclical variations in economic activity (DWP and HMRC, 2009)
as can be seen from Figure 2.2. The chart indicates not only the much greater relative
10
incidence of unemployment amongst 16-18 year olds but also the rapid increase in that
incidence during the recent recession. While the unemployment rate amongst the
working age population as a whole increased by three percentage points from around
mid-2008 up to early 2010, the unemployment rate amongst 16-18 year olds increased by
7 percentage points over the same period to a level of around 27 per cent.
Figure 2.2 ILO unemployment rate by age group, UK, 2004-2010
Source: Labour Force Survey
This cyclical sensitivity is likely to be related to employers’ employment decisions and
their impact upon recruitment volumes (see Chapter 4 below). Decisions by employers to
stop recruiting in a recession are likely to impact most on young people as they are at a
point of entry to the job market and likely to be excluded in favour of retention of existing
employees. The impact on young people can be serious, both in terms of short-term
attitudes and behaviour (Princes Trust, 2010) and in terms of long-term employment
opportunities and lifetime earnings (Bell and Blanchflower, 2010).
2.7 ‘Churn’ in the ‘youth’ job market
It is often suggested (Worth, 2005: Wolf, 2011) that the youth labour market is
characterised by ‘churn’, that is by frequent job changes and periodic short spells of
unemployment. The explanation for this is that young people lack sufficient information to
make informed choices of career and engage in a period of testing the job market in order
to find jobs and employers that they like. It is also likely that the jobs to which they are
recruited – accommodation & food services, sales jobs, elementary occupations - are
themselves characterised by high turnover regardless of the age of employees.
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16-64 year olds 16-19 year olds
11
The Labour Force Survey for 2010 indicates that the duration of spells of full-time
employment amongst young people was short, generally a matter of months. Overall
amongst the 16-18 year age group nearly a quarter (24.3 per cent) had been with their
current employer for less than six months. This might seem inevitable amongst recent
school leavers aged 16 but short employment spells are also to be found amongst 17 and
18 year olds. Amongst the latter, for instance, 25 per cent had worked for their current
employer for less than six months and almost half (48 per cent) had work for their current
employer for less than less than 12 months.
Further evidence of ‘churn’ comes from the spells of unemployment amongst young
people. Table 2.7 reports on the duration of people aged 16-18 years of age who were
unemployed on the basis of the ILO definition. The table indicates that just over a third
(35 per cent) had been unemployed for less than three months and more than half (56
per cent) had been unemployed for less than six months. This suggests that the majority
of unemployment spells amongst 16-18 year olds are of short duration, although it must
be borne in mind that these are uncompleted spells of unemployment.
Table 2.7 Duration of unemployment spell, 16-18 year olds, UK, 2010 Q4
Duration of unemployment spell Number Per cent
Less than 3 months 104437 34.7
3 months but less than 6 months 63682 21.2
6 months but less than 12 months 79840 26.5
12 months but less than 18 months 34139 11.3
18 months or more 18779 6.2
Total 300877 100.0
Source: Labour Force Survey, 2011, Q4
A similar, if less reliable, picture emerges from data on unemployed claimants. This is a
less reliable picture because 16-17 year olds are not entitled to claim Jobseekers
Allowance and so the incentive to register as unemployed is correspondingly reduced.
Figure 2.8 describes the duration of unemployment for those young people who do ‘sign
on’ with the Jobcentre. The chart suggests that in July 2011, almost a third (31 per cent)
of such young claimants had been unemployed for less than one month while well over
two thirds (70 per cent) had been unemployed for less than 13 weeks.
12
Figure 2.8 Distribution of unemployed claimant spell by duration, 16-17 year olds, UK, 2007 and 2011
Source: Labour Force Survey, 2011, Q4
0.0 5.0 10.0 15.0 20.0 25.0
One week or less
Over 1 and up to 2 weeks
Over 2 and up to 4 weeks
Over 4 and up to 6 weeks
Over 6 and up to 8 weeks
Over 8 and up to 13 weeks
Over 13 and up to 26 weeks
Over 6 months and up to a year
Over 1 year
Percentage of 16-17 year old claimants
July 2007 July 2011
13
2.8 Key characteristics of the 16-18 year old job market
The preceding brief review of the labour market situation of 16-18 year olds has
highlighted a number of key features of their situation. These are:
Only a very small proportion of employers recruit 16-18 year olds directly from school
or college, although a greater number recruit 16-18 year olds from unemployment or
other employers.
Much of the recruitment of 16-18 year olds is of students to part-time jobs. The
proportion of the 16-18 age cohort recruited to full-time jobs is comparatively low.
Where young people entered full-time employment they tended to enter skilled
manual trades (25 per cent), personal service occupations (19 per cent) or
elementary occupations (19 per cent). Around 12 per cent of full-time jobs for young
people were in administrative and secretarial jobs. Part-time employment of young
people, unlike those in full-time work, is dominated by jobs in sales and customer
service occupations (45 per cent) and elementary occupations (38 per cent).
16-18 year olds who have entered employment (excluding full-time students) are
much better qualified than those who are unemployed or inactive. A majority (64 per
cent) of 16-18 year olds in employment held qualifications at NQF Level 2 or above.
This suggests either that employers have selected the best qualified or that the best
qualified possess other characteristics that employer want.
Unemployment amongst young people is relatively high but normally of short
duration, suggesting it is a transitional state between education and job, or between
one job and another. The cyclical sensitivity of youth unemployment suggests a link
to employer recruitment behaviour.
The conclusion that can be drawn from this the job market for 16-18 year olds is a
complex one. While many employers are unlikely to be recruiting young people, those
that do are likely to be doing so on a frequent basis as the jobs offered are often part-time
and subject to high turnover (partly because they are taken by students during their
studies and partly because of the inherently high turnover in the low skilled jobs on offer).
Chapters 3 and 4 that follow now considers the recruitment process in more detail and
the impact that this can have on the employment of young people.
14
3 Employers and the recruitment process
3.1 Introduction
Before examining the evidence relating to the recruitment of young people, and 16-18
year olds in particular, it is important to consider the recruitment process that provides the
broad context for such recruitment. Recruiting young people is just one recruitment
option for employers and it is critical to understand why they might, or might not, choose
to recruit from that source. By considering when employers recruit, how they recruit and
what they want from the people they recruit, some light can be shed on the position of
young people in the job market and help identify specific aspects of the process that may
disadvantage young people in the job market.
3.2 When do employers recruit?
Employers are the ‘gate-keepers’ in the market for jobs. Jobs are created by employers
in response to their labour requirements, which are, in turn, determined by the type of
economic activity that the business is engaged in, the ‘production’ techniques available to
it and the level of output or activity within the enterprise. When the labour requirements
of an enterprise differ from the labour resources available to it, adjustment is required.
Adjustments may be needed because of labour turnover or because of an increase or
decrease in output. It can also occur because of a mismatch between labour
requirements and the skills of current employees. Employers can respond in a number of
different ways, only some of which will result in recruitment in the external job market.
For instance, faced with the need for additional labour of a particular type, an employer
could:
1. Change the utilization of the existing workforce, e.g. by working overtime,
extending job responsibilities
2. redeploy the existing workforce
3. reduce turnover within the existing workforce, e.g. reduce quits, delay retirements
etc.
4. hire a replacement employee of the type required
5. hire and train a less skilled worker
6. leave the vacancy unfilled
Only in the case of (4), (5) and (6) will a job vacancy appear on the external market, as
the other adjustments to meet the new labour requirement are met by changes to the
existing workforce. The number of recruits that employers will be seeking will thus be
15
given by the following identity:
R = Q + D + W - RD – FTE - UV
where R is recruitment, Q is quits, D is dismissals (or layoffs), W is withdrawals
(retirements, maternity leave, sick leave etc.), RD is redeployment, FTE is the full-time
job equivalent change in labour utilization (hours and effort) and UV is unfilled vacancies.
The number of people recruited from the external job market would be high where Q, D or
W is high and lower where RD, FTE or V is high.
Recruitment decisions are made in a world of uncertainty and incomplete information.
This has several consequences. First, employers often need to wait to see how
circumstances unfold, for instance whether an increase in sales is a temporary fluctuation
or a longer-term trend, and often take short-term measures in the meantime. Second,
even if an employer decides it is necessary to recruit on the external job market, they
face the problem that labour is of variable quality or suitability. This necessitates a
search process to identify and select recruits of an acceptable standard. How much effort
is put into this search process will depend upon the extent of the differences between
workers (and hence the costs of making a poor engagement), the costs of carrying out
the recruitment activity and search and, finally, the hiring standards that are set (how
choosy the employer is). The more resources that are devoted to this search process,
the greater the initial costs but the greater will also be the potential benefits in terms of
high quality recruits and future output.
3.3 What do employers want?
What employers look for in their recruits differs from job to job, depending upon the job
specification, sector and region (Bunt, 2005). Many different components can feature in
the hiring decision, including;
possession of the particular skills being sought
possession of relevant qualifications or licenses
past experience in a similar job
personal circumstances
personal qualities
Recent evidence from the UK Employer Perspectives Survey 2010 (EPS2010) provides
an indication of the weight employers attach to different attributes when recruiting. These
are illustrated by Figure 3.1. The evidence from EPS2010 is that the most important
factor of ‘critical importance’ to employers is a good personality and attitude. This was
mentioned by 64 per cent of employers in EPS2010. Performance in an interview and
previous experience were also regarded as critical or significant by a large proportion of
16
employers. Qualifications, either academic or vocational, were relatively less important
than personality and attitude or previous experience (Shury et al, 2011).
Figure 3.1 Attributes employers look for in recruits, UK 2010
Source: UK Employer Perspectives Survey 2010 (Shury et al, 2011)
While Figure 3.1 describes the overall pattern, the weight attached to individual attributes
does vary somewhat according to the size of business. While employers of all sizes
broadly agreed on the critical importance of personality and attitude, small businesses
were more likely to place a critical value on previous experience while large employers
were more likely to place critical significance on the attainment of some specific level of
attainment in academic qualifications. There was little difference across the size bands in
terms of the (lack of) importance of vocational qualification, with only between 5 and 9 per
cent of employers regarding such qualifications as critical (Shury et al, 2011).
Nonetheless, while all these factors are likely to carry some weight in the hiring decision,
research with employers commonly finds an underlying intent to find ‘the right person for
the job’. The right person for the job can mean different things depending upon the type
of job and the circumstances in which it was created (Devins et al, 2004). Snape (1998)
suggested that some employers, especially large organisations with a degree of market
power, looked for recruits who fit in with the organisation’s culture and ways of working.
Shared values or an ability to ‘get on’ with’ existing staff were more important than
specific skills which organisations were often willing to allow recruits to pick up on the job.
Other organisations, especially small businesses in competitive environments with low
margins, were looking for recruits who could ‘hit the ground running’ and had the ability to
do the job right from the start. For these employers, job specific competences were at a
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
Good personality and attitude
Performance at interview
Previous experience in a similar job
Particular level of academic qualifications
A relevent NVQ or SVQ
A relevent vocational qualification other than NVQ/SVQ
Percentage of employers
Critical Significant Small amount of value No value
17
premium (as they minimised productivity losses and training needs) together with
attributes indicating that a low level of early supervision would be required, such as the
‘right’ attitude, flexibility, self-motivation and reliability.
While some of the attributes that employers want are readily observable (e.g.
qualifications, previous experience) others are less amenable to direct observation (e.g.
motivation, flexibility, ability to learn) and even the observable attributes may not perfectly
measure the qualities being sought. In such circumstances, there is a risk that a mistake
will be made and an employer will hire the ‘wrong person’ rather than the ‘right person’.
That mistake is likely to involve a cost to the business. As one micro business employer
put it:
“an employee is, at least initially, a burden on the business. It takes a while to convert their work into growth for the firm” (BCC, 2011).
The aim is therefore to hire someone who will be a burden on the business for the
shortest time and to minimise the risk of hiring someone who will be a longer-term
burden.
Employers can seek to minimise the risk of hiring errors in a number of ways. Where the
employment relationship is expected to be short-term (for instance, because of
historically high turnover rates), a low cost approach to selection, such as statistical
discrimination, may be used (Bonoli and Hinrichs, 2010). Statistical discrimination
involves selection on the basis of some personal characteristic such as age, gender or
even place of residence in the belief that certain groups of job seekers are, on average,
more productive than other groups. If based on real differences in productivity, such an
approach would, on average and over the long-term, result in the recruitment of more
productive workers even if it was unjust for specific individuals. This simple type of
selection process is often found in low skill, high turnover occupations since it is a simple
low cost method capable of dealing with high levels of recruitment activity. Some forms
of discrimination are illegal but even where this is not so (or is practiced surreptitiously)
such an approach to minimising risk will be inefficient if the perception of the link between
productivity and characteristic is erroneous. Employer perceptions thus play an important
role in recruitment through this selection process.
Where the employment relationship is likely to be longer-term, and the consequences of
a mistake are more costly to the employer, statistical discrimination may be too crude a
method and additional methods may be used to select the right person (Bonoli and
Hinrichs, 2010). Tests relating to specific skills or aptitudes may be administered as part
of the application process. Further methods to reduce the risk from a wrong appointment
include work trial periods, probationary periods or even temporary and casual contracts
that allow the employment of the new recruit to be terminated should it become apparent
18
that they are not right for the job.
3.4 Recruitment methods
There are many different methods by which employers’ can find potential recruits. These
include formal methods such as use of Jobcentres, private employment agencies,
advertising in professional journals and newspapers as well as informal methods such as
seeking personal recommendations from existing employees, direct approaches to
potential recruits, word-of-mouth and so forth. Each recruitment channel in turn has its
own associated costs and benefits in terms of its coverage of potential recruits and its
effectiveness in identifying and selecting suitable recruits each of which will translate into
direct costs of recruitment and indirect cost in terms of delays and errors in recruitment.
Differences in the use of recruitment channels can be attributed to differences in the
potential benefits to search (the consequences of making a wrong appointment; the
extent of the variation in the distribution of worker productivity), differences in the costs of
different methods and the scale on which recruitment is required.
The recent UK Employer Perspectives Survey 2010 (EPS2010) found that the most
commonly used recruitment channel in the UK was the Jobcentre, used by two fifths (39
per cent) of employers trying to fill a vacancy. Local newspapers and word of mouth
were also used by a significant proportion of employers, 28 per cent and 24 per cent
respectively (Shury et al, 2011). Employers often use a combination of recruitment
channels (Hasluck and Hogarth, 2008), for instance in 2010 around 24 per cent used the
Jobcentre in combination with some other method (Shury et al, 2011).
EPS2010 found that the use of the Jobcentre was more common amongst large
employers than small. Whereas 53 per cent of those employing 250 employees or more
used the Jobcentre, the proportion fell with size to just 32 per cent of businesses
employing 2-4 employees. Similarly, word of mouth and personal recommendations was
most common (31 per cent) amongst those employing 2-4 employees, decreased with
size until just 11 per cent of the largest employers (250 employees or more) used such
methods (Shury et al, 2011). A recent survey of micro businesses found that just over
half of businesses employing less than 10 people used word of mouth or personal
recommendations (BCC, 2011). More strikingly, 92 per cent of employers recruiting to
entry level jobs and surveyed by the Centre for Social Justice were reported to have
recruited at least a portion of their staff through word of mouth and informal networks
(CSJ, 2011). These differences reflect of the more professional human resource
practices of larger organisations and the more intimate and close working relationships
that exist within microbusinesses (BCC, 2011).
19
4 Recruiting young people
4.1 Recruitment practices and young people
The overview of employers’ recruitment practices in the preceding chapter suggests that
there may be several ways in which employer behaviour and recruitment methods could
impact upon the job opportunities available to young people. In the first place, the
volume of recruitment, and thus opportunities for entry to employment, is strongly cyclical
in nature and young people, as new entrants to the job market, will be disproportionately
affected by this. In addition, there may also be direct effects arising from employer
perceptions of young people as a group. If employers see young people aged 16 or 17 in
some negative way and regard their recruitment as more of a risk, then very young job
applicants may be sifted out at the application stage.
“Employers can be reluctant to employ a young person with no work experience as they see them as a risk rather than as a productive employee, especially in difficult economic times” (Katerina Rudiger, Skills Policy Adviser, Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development, quoted in Personnel Today, 30th June 2011).
Finally, there is a possibility that employers’ recruitment practices may inadvertently
disadvantage young people and exclude them from job opportunities when they arise.
4.2 Young people and the recession
Chapter 2 highlighted the cyclical sensitivity of employment amongst 16-18 year olds
(Blanchflower and Freeman, 2000; OECD, 2010; European Commission, 2011). The
recession that commenced in the UK during mid-2008 has led to large increases in youth
unemployment as young people compete with an increasing number of job seekers for a
diminishing number of jobs (OECD, 2010). Examination of business decisions regarding
recruitment as set out in Chapter 3 suggests several reasons for this. First, employers in
many sectors may simply not be recruiting, making it difficult for young people to gain
entry to employment. Faced with falling or stagnant sales, businesses will reduce
recruitment and use other means to adjust their labour force, such as reductions in hours
or short-time working. According to the CIPD (2011) the impact of the recent recession
has been to increase the percentage of employers concentrating on retaining existing
employees (51 per cent in 2011 compared with 28 per cent in 2010) or redeploying
people to new roles (44 per cent in 2011, 30 per cent in 2010) rather than recruiting.
Many (22 per cent in 2011) were not recruiting at all or were reducing the head count in
their business (35 per cent). This inevitably has limited the job opportunities available to
young people. In 2009 around 13 per cent of employers indicated that they had
decreased their recruitment of young people, although this was partly offset by the 5 per
20
cent who had increased their recruitment (UKCES, 2010)
Second, even when job opportunities arise on the external job market, in a recession
young people may face increased competition for jobs from more experienced and more
skilled job seekers who have been displaced from a previous job by redundancy. This
can even be the case where the jobs in question are low skill, entry level jobs. Hasluck
(2011) demonstrated that in 2010 a large proportion of people working in elementary
occupations in the UK (for which little more than basic schooling was normally required)
held intermediate and even higher level qualifications. Almost half (47 per cent) of people
working in elementary occupations were qualified to NQF Level 2 or above. That
employers raise their hiring standards in slack labour markets was recognised a long time
ago (Reder, 1955: Thurow, 1975). In the recent recession and its aftermath, employers
may well be selecting recruits on the basis of levels of qualifications and experience that
they would not previously have sought. Chapter 2 already highlighted the fact that 16-18
year olds in employment are much better qualified than those who are not in education or
employment. Raised hiring standards may also apply to work experience. Bell and
Blanchflower (2010) suggest many young people find themselves caught in ‘an
experience trap’ in which employers select recruits on the basis of previous work
experience and, as a result, young entrants to the job market who lack experience cannot
obtain the job that would allow them to gain that experience.
A further consequence of a tightening of the job market and increased competition for
entry level jobs is that many people seeking work will be ‘displaced’ into jobs that they
would not ordinarily consider. Employers who continue to recruit will tend to be those in
sectors where high levels of staff turnover are endemic because pay and conditions are
poor (such as in the hospitality or retail sector). Young people who are recruited to these
jobs run the risk of acquiring a problematic work history with frequent job changes and,
possibly, disillusionment with work. These are also sectors that traditionally have been
poor at providing training and workforce development opportunities to their recruits.
When full-time jobs are difficult to come by, young job market entrants may be forced to
take part-time work. The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR, 2010) found that
more than 20 per cent of people working in a part-time job because they could not find
full-time work were young people (aged 16-24). Research by the Office for National
Statistics (ONS) found a similar proportion (22 per cent) of ‘under-employment’ (people
working part-time because they could not find a full-time job) amongst 16-17 year olds.
This increased to 29 per cent amongst 16-17 year old men (ONS, 2010). Evidence from
the Labour Force survey presented earlier in Table 2.4 indicates that around 30 per cent
of non-student 16-18 year old employees in the accommodation & food services sector in
late 2010 were people working part-time because they could not find full–time
employment. The comparable figures for transport & storage and for arts, entertainment
21
& recreation were 20 per cent and 27 per cent respectively.
Being forced by economic circumstances to work part-time or to work in a high turnover
sector can have long term consequences for young people, as can failing to obtain a job.
Frequent job changes (especially if punctuated by spells of unemployment) or a pattern of
sporadic part-time employment can result in a work history that employers tend to regard
as ‘problematic’ (see Section 4.4 below). In addition, many of the jobs taken do not
provide the training that would allow young recruits to progress later in their careers.
Kahn (2010) showed that young people leaving college during a recession experienced
large negative effects on wages over the remainder of their working life. Arulampalam
(2001) and Mroz and Savage (2006) both found similar large negative lifetime wage
impacts of unemployment when young, while Bell and Blanchflower (2010) found
negative lifetime impacts on happiness, job satisfaction, wages and health.
An additional factor in the recent recession is competition for entry level jobs from EU
migrants. Clancy (2008) showed that migrants from the new EU accession states were
concentrated in certain occupations, the largest number being in distribution, hotels &
restaurants, followed by elementary occupations and process, plant & machinery
operatives. As already noted, these are areas of the job market where they would be in
competition with young people. Compared with UK school and college leavers, many
migrants have a competitive advantage as they work in occupations ranked lower in
terms of skill content and wages than UK born workers with the same level of education
(Dustmann, Frattini, and Preston, 2007). Nonetheless, there is little evidence that such
migration has had an impact on wages (Lemos and Portes, 2008: Blanchflower and
Lawton, 2009), although Blanchflower and Shadforth (2009) provided evidence of a
negative impact on the employment of the least skilled young people, although this
impact was small.
4.3 Employer perceptions of young people
The Wolf Report (Wolf, 2011) suggested that employers see 16 and 17 year olds seeking
employment as likely to be low-achieving or lacking the personal qualities they seek.
This perception is based on experience, Wolf argues, and is a consequence of the
selection process in which the majority of 16-18 year olds remain in full time education
while the less able leave education at the earliest opportunity to seek a paid job.
Some business leaders have gone further and suggested that the school system does
not provide them with young people possessing the basic skills their businesses require.
Sir Terry Leahy, chief executive of Tesco, said in 2009 that the standard of school leavers
was “woefully low” while Sir Stuart Rose, chief executive of Marks and Spencers, claimed
that businesses were “not always getting what we need” from the British education
22
system which was producing people that were “not fit for work”. Sir Stuart said of some
school-leavers: “They cannot do reading. They cannot do arithmetic. They cannot do
writing” and added “There is a lot of money being spent [on skills] but we want to make
sure that what is required is being met by what is produced. Sometimes there is a
mismatch and we’re not always getting what we need.” (quoted in the Daily Telegraph, 24
November 2009).
Clearly if such views are widespread amongst employers, and based on real
characteristics of young people, the impact on recruitment of 16-18 year olds would be
significant. How widespread are such views? The annual CBI/EDI Education and Skills
Survey 2011 quantified the extent of such employer dissatisfaction with the basic skills of
school and college leavers. The survey found that 42 per cent of employers surveyed
were not satisfied with the basic use of English by school and college leavers while 35
per cent were concerned about the basic numeracy skills of such young people. Notably,
44 per cent of employers said that they had to invest in remedial training for young
recruits from school or college (CBI, 2011).
Not all employers regard young people so negatively, even in the CBI survey.
Casebourne (2011) cites evidence from NESS2009 that suggests that the great majority
of employers regarded young people recruited directly from school or college as being
well prepared for work (see Figure 4.1). Around 84 per cent of employers who had
recruited any young person (under 24) felt that their young recruit was well, or very well,
prepared. While this proportion does fall slightly where recruits were younger, even here
the great majority of employers still regarded their recruits as well or very well prepared
(66 per cent in the case where the recruits were 16 year olds).
Despite the generally positive views expressed by employers in NESS2009, there is a
sizable minority who regarded recruits from school or college as poorly prepared for
employment. In the case of employers who recruited a 16 year old, the proportion of
employers was 29 per cent, much higher than for employers who recruited 17 year olds
(21 per cent) or where employers recruited any young people (11 per cent).
Where employers were dissatisfied with the work preparedness of 16-17 year olds the
main reasons cited were a lack of working world or life experience and poor attitude,
personality or lack of motivation whereas a lack of specific skills or competencies, such
as technical or job specific skills, was the concern in regard to older youth age groups. In
a survey of 2255 micro businesses in 2011, employers said that, in general, young
people lack numerical skills, research skills, ability to focus and to read plus poor written
English. Almost half (47 per cent) of micro business employers said they would be ‘fairly’
or ‘very nervous’ of recruiting a school leaver (BCC, 2011).
23
Figure 4.1 Work readiness of young recruits by proportion of employers recruiting young people, England, 2009
Source: National Employers Skills Survey (cited in Casebourne, 2011)
A group of young people at a particular disadvantage in terms of the way in which they
are perceived by employers is the unemployed, especially the longer-term unemployed.
While there is little evidence that being unemployed per se has a negative impact on
being successful in a job application, there is substantial evidence that employers regard
job applicants who have been unemployed for a long time as a serious risk, both in terms
of additional cost, poor performance and risk of leaving the job at short notice. A survey
1,000 managers in 2009 for the Institute of Leadership and Management found that job
seekers had a ‘six month window’ within which to get into work before employer attitudes
to their unemployment began to harden (ILM, 2009). Around 83 per cent of managers in
the ILM survey said that employment status was irrelevant initially as it was not an
indicator of ability but this dropped to just 28 per cent if the applicant had been
unemployed for six months or more.
Part of the reason for employers’ negative attitude towards longer-term unemployed
young people is that they use the duration of unemployment an indicator of motivation,
with long spells unemployed being seen as a sign that the applicant lacks drive or the
desire to work and may also lack the self-discipline required to be relied upon to keep
good time and low absence (Devins and Hogarth, 2005; BCC, 2011).
6 3 1
23 18
10
52 58
58
14 16 26
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
16 year old school leavers
17-18 year old school/college leavers
Under 24 year old university/higher
education leavers
Perc
enta
ge o
f re
cru
itin
g e
mplo
yers
Very poorly prepared Poorly prepared Well prepared Very well prepared
24
4.4 The impact of employers’ recruitment practices on young peoples’ employment opportunities
The macroeconomic conditions which influence levels of activity and labour requirements
are largely outside of the control of businesses. The impact of macroeconomic conditions
on the recruitment of young people is therefore difficult to modify as they are a
consequence of basic business decisions. The ways in which employers’ recruit,
however, and who they recruit for any given vacancy is something over which employers
do have control and could, therefore be open to influence by policymakers.
4.4.1 Recruitment channels
When recruiting, employers use a variety of recruitment channels to find applicants.
Formal methods of recruitment include advertising in newspapers (national and local) and
professional or trade journals, radio and similar media, private sector employment
agencies, the Jobcentre and, increasingly, the internet. Informal methods include internal
vacancy newsletters and noticeboards, word of mouth, waiting lists and so on. From a
survey of employers in Greater Manchester, Hasluck and Hogarth (2008) found the
following patterns of usage amongst employers2:
informal methods, such as word-of-mouth (used by three quarters of employers);
the Jobcentre (just under a half of employers);
the local and regional press (just under a half of employers);
employers’ own websites (just under a third of employers); and
recruitment websites (just under a quarter of employers).
Some employers outsource recruitment to employment agencies. Employment agencies
can help employers by obtaining and sifting applications but this is more common
amongst employers recruiting high level and professional staff as the cost of using such
agencies is often high. Some employment agencies do, however, specialise in providing
staff for entry level jobs, sometimes on a ‘temporary’ basis so that an employer can see
how they perform before taking them on permanently and this may help young people
gain entry to employment as it reduces the risk perceived by employers.
The use by employers of informal methods to seek recruits has frequently been cited as
disadvantaging young job seekers. Such methods are centred on the existing workforce
and its extended network of contacts. Informal methods include vacancy boards within or
outside the workplace, internal newsletters and vacancy lists, lists of previous applicants,
contacts with ex-employees, word of mouth and recommendations from existing
employees. The principal reasons cited by employers for the use of such methods are
2 The survey covered 600 employers with 10 or more employees in Greater Manchester area.
25
two-fold: these methods cost little and the employer regards the applicant as low risk
because they come with a recommendation or are already known to them (Hasluck and
Hogarth, 2008; BCC, 2011). Atfield et al (2011) have suggested that the use of word of
mouth recommendations from existing employees has been increasing in recent years,
especially during the recession. A survey of employers offering entry level jobs found
that 92 per cent of them recruit a portion of the staff through word of mouth and other
informal methods (CSJ, 2011). Similarly, a survey of ‘micro businesses’ by the British
Chambers of Commerce found that more than half of the businesses surveyed used
networking, recommendations and word of mouth (BCC, 2011).
There is a striking inconsistency between the ways that young people look for
employment and the way by which they obtain it. Atfield et al (2011) found evidence that
low skilled job seekers were more reliant on more formal job seeking methods and this is
equally the case in respect of young people. .The Labour Force Survey for 2010 shows
that the main method used by 16-18 years in employment (excluding full-time students) to
search for a job was to look at, or answer job advertisements in newspapers or journals
(53 per cent). Only 11 per cent used word of mouth methods such as asking friends of
relatives and only 15 per cent regarded the Jobcentre or Careers office as their main
method of job search. This pattern is very different from the methods used by employers
as discussed above. Moreover, when asked how they had obtained their last job, their
answers were very much in line with pattern of recruitment channels used by employers,
predominantly citing ‘hearing from someone who worked there’ (38 per cent) or, to a
lesser extent, the Jobcentre or Careers Office (13 per cent) while relatively few (17 per
cent) obtained their job by replying to a job advert despite the fact that the majority used
that method as their main method of job search.
It is clear that informal recruitment channels dominate the recruitment process for young
people. The key concern about such methods is that most are centred directly or
indirectly on the workplace. Young people may only have limited awareness of such
recruitment channels as they are seeking to enter the world of work and are not yet part
of it. The evidence from the Labour Force Survey very much supports that view. Access
to job opportunities may thus depend very much on the social networks to which young
people belong (Devins and Hogarth, 2007).
4.4.2 Selection procedures
Recruitment generally involves a selection process. Methods and practice vary greatly,
particularly in respect of skill level. Snape (1998) found that for the least skilled jobs the
most common selection process was a written or telephone application followed by an
interview for all applicants. While this remains broadly true it is increasingly the case that
applications are made on-line at the employer’s website. Interviews remain the most
26
commonly used method of sifting and selecting recruits (Devins et al, 2004; CIPD, 2011).
There is much evidence from the past (Devins et al, 2004; Jenkins and Wolf, 2005; Roe
et al, 2006; Shury et al, 2008) that qualifications play only a limited role in employers’
selection decisions regarding applicants for low skilled occupations of the type for which
young people would be applying. Having said that, more recent evidence, reflecting the
impact of the recent recession, found that some employers who recruited through the
Jobcentre and who faced large numbers of applications of widely differing quality used
qualifications as a simple screening device to short-list potential recruits (UKCES, 2011).
This opportunistic inflation of hiring standards has the effect of preventing candidates
from entering employment who would, in a more buoyant labour market, have been hired.
If so, this is merely confirmation of the Reder’s proposition (Reder, 1955) that employers
respond to cyclical variations in labour demand by varying their hiring standards, raising
them in recession and lowering them in tight labour markets. As hiring standards rise or
fall, so recruitment recedes or advances along the ‘labour queue’ (Thurow, 1975)
excluding or embracing young people with the lowest qualifications or other attributes that
employers seek.
Keep and James (2010) found that employers may disregard formal educational
requirements if an applicant has other desirable qualities. Specific qualifications may not
even be stipulated or required in some instances. Much greater weight appears to be
given to selecting applicants who possess the right generic and soft skills: attitudes,
motivation, flexibility (Newton et al, 2005). Employers offering entry level jobs tend to
look for a number of attributes in applicants:
an attitude that demonstrates a positive work ethic
an awareness of what the role entails
an aptitude for the basic requirements of the job
‘likeability’ and individual ‘fit within the organisation.
Various indicators of such generic skills may be used, either at any shortlisting stage or
after interview. It is at this point that perceptions and statistical discrimination may affect
employers’ decisions. Negative perceptions of young peoples’ motivation or attitude and
work readiness may result in an initial screening out or rejection at interview.
Following the distinction made by Snape (1998), some employers are primarily
concerned to recruit a person who can perform the tasks required by the job at the outset.
These tend to be employers operating in competitive markets where margins are low.
Such employers will seek recruits who can demonstrate that they have the skills and
competencies necessary to do the job straight away and not to require a length period of
training or supervision. Experience and technical competence, together with a good work
27
history will be at a premium for this type of employer. In many cases school leavers and
college graduate will find it difficult to gain jobs with such employers unless the work is
very elementary. Even if they have the right attitudes and personal qualities, such young
people will not have much, if any, work history nor experience in a similar job. Young
people may have a greater probability of securing employment in organisations that are
looking for recruits whom they can train, who share the values of the business and have
the right drive and commitment. These are more likely to be larger organisations and this
may go some way to explaining the fact that 63 per cent of businesses employing 100 or
more recruited a young person in the previous 12 months compared with just 30 per cent
of businesses employing 5-24 employees (Casebourne, 2011).3
4.4.3 Temporary work, work experience placements and internship
One way by which an employer can reduce the risk they associate with the recruitment of
a young person is to ‘try before they buy’. Hiring a young person on a trial basis allows
the employer to assess the suitability of the recruit while not having a commitment to
employing the young person should they prove unsuitable. Several studies have found
that the motivation to of businesses that offer work placements to educational institutions
is predominantly the belief that such placements will help the employer identify suitable
candidates for employment and ease the recruitment process (CBI, 2007: Education and
Employers Task Force, 2010).. Such trials can take various forms. A work experience
placement may be offered where a young person works in the business to gain
experience and the employers gets to assess their suitability and may offer a job at the
end of the placement. Some work placements are offered to young people still in
education and the offer, if the young person is satisfactory, is for a job when that
education is completed. Other placements are offered after full-time education is
completed with the prospect of being taken on by the employer if deemed suitable. It has
become fashionable to describe the latter type of placement as an ‘internship’ although
work placements of that nature have existed for a very long time.
Work placements and internships are controversial. Advocates point to the experience
gained allowing young people to break out of the ‘experience trap’ as well as being an
encouragement to employers to try out young people they might not otherwise have
considered. Critics suggest that some placements amount to exploitation of young
people, pointing to the low pay and the uncertainty of the outcome from such placements.
There is evidence that young people on work placements or internships tend to be poorly
paid. In a survey conducted by XpertHR, and reported in Personnel Today, 44 per cent
of employers surveyed admitted that they did not pay a wage to people on work
3 Caution needs to be exercised in regard to the relationship between employer size and the likelihood of
recruiting a young person. The probability that a large employer will recruit a young person could be greater than that of a small business simply because the large business recruits on a larger scale.
28
placement and less than half considered this unethical. Even where a wage was paid it
tended to be low, even below the National Minimum Wage in some instances. The
lowest pay reported was just £2.50 per hour. (Personnel Today, 2011a).
Responding to such criticism, several guides for employers have been launched.
Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) has joined Jobcentre Plus to
launch a guide to employers “Work experience placements that work”. The guide is
designed to help employers run a placement and one of its key recommendations is that
a ‘work experience agreement be signed at the outset by employer and young person to
ensure commitment on both sides (Personnel Today, 2011b). In July the Department for
Business, Innovation and Skills launched a ‘best practice guide’ for internships while the
National Council for Work Experience also provides guidance for employers. The Council
recommended that employers considering a work placement should:
plan ahead to ensure there is a meaningful but achievable project appropriate to
the skill level of the person in the placement
draw up a development plan so that it is clear what the placement will entail
be inclusive – treat work placements just as any other employee
provide an induction for the person in the placement
assign a mentor
organise progress reviews to assess performance and receive feedback.
Another strategy that reduces risk when recruiting a young person is to hire them on a
temporary or short-term basis. If their performance is satisfactory such a short-term
contract may be replaced by a more permanent contract. According to the Labour Force
Survey around 15 per cent of 16-18 years olds (excluding full-time students who were
working) were employed in a job that was temporary in some sense. Of these around 17
per cent were working for an employment agency, 29 per cent in a casual job and 29 per
cent on a fix-term or fixed-task contract. It is difficult to say what proportion of these jobs
represent a trial in the true sense although all represent ‘a foot in the employment door’.
Around 15 per cent of 16-18 years in employment (excluding students) were on a fixed
term contract that included training, which might suggest a degree of commitment on the
part of the employer that might, possibly, be translated into a more permanent job offer in
the future. While many young people in temporary or casual jobs said this was because
they did not want a permanent job, many others said they had taken a temporary job
because they were unable to obtain a permanent job. It is likely that some of the latter is
also employment on a trial basis.
An alternative to offering a temporary or probationary period of employment is to recruit a
young person to a training place, such as an Apprenticeship, on the understanding that
29
the period of employment is only for the period of training in the first instance. This also
has the advantage of limiting the employer’s commitment to permanent employment but it
has the advantage of providing the young person with skills and work experience.
Apprenticeships in traditional areas such as engineering or construction represent a
substantial investment on the part of the employer and may not be a suitable vehicle for
employers’ to trial young people. In less traditional sectors, such as retailing or
hospitality, the short completion time and low cost may make apprenticeship a viable way
of assessing the suitability of young recruits as potential future employees. Many Level 2
apprenticeships can be completed in 9-12 months and have been shown to be of low cost
to employers, even resulting in a financial benefit in some instances ((Hasluck, Hogarth,
Baldauf and Briscoe, 2008: Hasluck and Hogarth, 2010: Gambin, Hasluck and Hogarth,
2010),
Despite the many benefits of Apprenticeships, the extent to which Apprenticeships have
penetrated employers is small. According to the National Employers Skills Survey 2009,
only around six per cent of employers offered 16-18 year olds an apprenticeship and only
around four per cent actually had 16-18 year olds undertaking an apprenticeship. Given
the prominence currently given to the Apprenticeship programme by the Government the
proportion of employers offering apprenticeships can be expected to have increased
since 2009. Nonetheless, in 2009 only 11 per cent of employers reported that they were
quite or very likely to employ an apprentice in the 16-18 year age group in the following
12 months (UKCES 2010). In fact, Wolf (2011) has suggested that many employers have
a strong preference for older apprentices and a reluctance to recruit 16 or 17 year olds to
such training places, citing a range of concerns including health and safety issues.
Nevertheless, while some employers may be reluctant to hire 16-18 year olds as
apprentices on other grounds, the opportunity provided to recruit young people on a less
risky basis should not be overlooked.
4.5 Improving recruitment practices
The reluctance of many employers to recruit very young people stems from a tendency to
regard their employment as a risk. Some employers see the risk in terms of a perceived
inability of young recruits to make a productive contribution to the business from the start
of their employment and an unwillingness to provide the training or supervision required
to bring them up to the required standard. Other employers see young people in the 16-
18 year age group as lacking the right attitudes and motivation and, while having a
preparedness to provide training to the right candidates, very young recruits are thought
not to fit in or have the drive, motivation and ability to learn required. Partly in response
to this, many employers use selection criteria that emphasise previous experience,
current employment status and, in some instance, higher qualifications than jobs require
in order to screen out applicants in a way that inevitably disadvantages very young job
30
applicants. Employers may also reduce the likelihood of receiving applications from
young applicants by using informal recruitment channels to which many young people
have limited access.
The use of informal recruitment channels by employers tends to disadvantage young
people because such channels are centred on the workplace and the social network
surrounding the existing workforce. Young people seeking work appear to have only a
limited awareness or access to such networks thus limiting the job opportunities open to
them. It also introduces an element of unfairness in that access to employment may
depend more on family connections than upon ability.
In part, the job prospects for young people could be improved if employers were to adopt
more formal human resource practices that made indirect, or unintentional, discrimination
less likely. Nunn et al (2010) found the use of ‘information shortcuts’ (another term for
statistical discrimination) was less likely where recruitment was ‘professionalised’.
Atkinson and Williams (2003) have argued that unprofessional recruitment and selection
methods by employers lead to poor matches between recruits and jobs. Poor matches
tend to result in the early termination of employment, confirming negative perceptions on
both sides. More efficient matching would lead to longer-term and successful
employment relations and promote more positive perceptions of young people.
The perceived risk of recruiting and employing a 16-18 year old could be reduced if
employers were to make greater use of trial periods of employment, whether by means of
work experience placements, internships or by offering training places such as
apprenticeship.
Having said all of the above, if it is truly the case that the education and training system is
not producing young people who are prepared for employment and who lack basic skills,
it will be necessary to address that problem. One approach would be for employers to
engage with education and training institutions to seek to ensure that when young people
leave school or college their capabilities, skills and attitudes better match the needs of
employers. This is considered in the final Chapter of this review.
31
5 Employer engagement with the education and training system
5.1 Introduction
This chapter looks at the concept of employer ‘engagement’ with the education and
training system (ETS). It considers what might be meant by that term, the benefits that
might flow from such engagement in terms of the recruitment of young people and the
factors that might limit such engagement. There is a wide range of literature relating to
employer engagement with education and business-education links and include, for
instance, Taylor (2005), Smith V (2004), MacLeod and Hughes (2006).
5.2 What is meant by employer engagement with education?
A traditional view of employer-ETS links sees education institutions offering a number of
services and ‘outputs’, ranging from school and college graduates and the facilitation of
workplace learning and professional development. Employers ‘engage’ with the ETS
through the ‘purchase’ these outputs when recruiting young people who have received a
basic education or attained specific qualifications. More recently a broader and more
multi-dimensional notion of engagement has emerged where engagement takes the more
active form of two-way links and collaboration between employers and the ETS. The
ultimate expression of this kind of engagement is the notion of a business-ETS
partnership in which business and education institutions work together to determine the
form of the education and training deliverables.
Macleod and Hughes (2006) developed a typology of employer engagement in which
engagement involves:
employers as consumers when they purchase the output of the learning process;
employers as stakeholders when they provide leadership through their
involvement in the design, development, management, delivery and assessment
of learning; and
employers as strategic partners when there is sustained interaction between
employers and education institutions.
The most obvious form of employer engagement is through the recruitment of school
leavers and college graduates. In some instances such engagement is almost incidental
as such young people are recruited to entry level jobs. More significant levels of
engagement involve situations in which employers contribute to the learning process in
educational institutions in regard to:
32
funding;
work placements;
standard setting;
course design;
assessment;
involvement in / contribution to teaching, lecturing or workshops
releasing staff for workforce development activities.
5.3 The benefits of, and limits to, employer-education links
Employers do not necessarily need to engage with educational institutions but could,
instead, rely on schools and colleges to supply them with young people possessing the
skills and qualities their business requires. That many employers regard young people as
ill prepared for work and lacking in basic skills suggests that many employers are
dissatisfied with the output of the education and training system. This means there may
be scope for gains to employers from some form of engagement with the ETS, either to
help redress deficiencies in school or college education or to assist in the recruitment and
selection process. It is worth noting that many employers are reluctant to engage with
educational institutions unless there is a clear business case for doing so (Education and
Employers Task Force, 2010).
The gains to employers from greater engagement include a saving in recruitment costs
and gains in productivity. Engagement might take the form of establishing relationships
with selected schools or colleges, establishing channels by which selected young people
are directed towards the employer for possible recruitment or by establishing
opportunities by which the employer can try out potential young recruits (for instance
through work placements). This could reduce recruitment costs (for instance by
eliminating much of the need to screen large numbers of applicants) and reduce the risk
associated with such recruitment. The benefit of improved recruitment has been found to
be one of the primary motivations for employers to engage with education (CBI, 2007:
Education and Employers Task Force, 2010). Potential gains to employers come in the
form of greater productivity and lower turnover costs arising from a better match between
recruit and the needs of the business.
There is a common perception amongst business leaders that there is a gap between
employers’ needs and the provision of schools and further education providers (CBI,
2011) Engagement in this instance would aim to be an influence on the curriculum, set
standards and ensure that young people are better prepared for employment than
currently (Ofsted, 2010). Employers that are motivated to engage for this reason stand to
33
gain in terms of more work ready recruits, reduced training and supervision costs and a
more immediately productive workforce.
Despite the business benefits of a link between employers and the ETS, the extent of
such engagement is variable. While there are potential benefits to be had – for
employers, for young people and for society as a whole – the extent of employer
engagement with schools and colleges will reflect the balance between those potential
benefits and the perceived costs. Some employers do not offer the type of entry level
jobs that 16-18 year olds typically take and are unlikely to seek to engage with schools
and colleges (they might prefer, for instance, to establish links with universities instead).
Even where an employer does recruits 16-18 year olds (or potential could do so) the
costs of business-education engagement need to be set against any benefits.
Employer engagement with the ETS is not costless. There is likely to be an investment
aspect to such engagement, with initial costs in terms of establishing a relationship with a
school or college being greater than the continuing costs of maintaining such a link. The
cost of identifying potential points of engagement (such as specific schools or colleges),
the staff time involved in liaising and working with them, any financial costs involved in
work placements all need to be taken into account. These costs need to be considered in
the context of existing recruitment practices that are low cost to employers, even if
disadvantaging young job seekers. A commitment to engagement is required at the very
top of organisations is required if the links are to be successful (Stirner and Duckenfield,
1992). Some have questioned whether employers even wish to engage with educational
institutions (Reeve and Gallacher, 2005).
Employer-education engagement is a ‘two-way street’. Boud and Soloman (2003)
suggest that contrasting cultures in educational institutions can limit the realisation of
effective engagement. A similar conclusion of cultural incompatibility was reached by
Reeve and Gallacher (2005) while Hughes (2004) observed that initiatives aimed at
developing college’s responsiveness to business failed to bring about a cultural change
because they remained marginal activities undertaken by few of the full-time staff. In a
similar vein, Ofsted (2011) found that many of the teachers deployed to deliver aspects of
enterprise education, especially in secondary schools, were non-specialists who had little
or no training in the area and this limited their ability to teach effectively. Scesa and
Williams (2008) found that unnecessary use of academic language and terminology could
be off-putting for employers seeking to engage. The Lambert Review (HM Treasury,
2003), albeit looking at higher education, pointed to the difficulty facing employers of
identifying ‘who does what’ within the ETS and within individual institutions. Where links
are established they often depend on interpersonal relationships that are vulnerable to
staff turnover. This makes it was difficult to maintain school/college links with employers
even where they had been established. Perhaps for some of these reasons, Ofsted
34
found that a third of schools inspected failed to provide sufficient opportunities for
students to engage with local business (Ofsted, 2011).
One thing that both sides of the employer-education relationship are agreed upon is that
the constraints on education-business links are much greater, relatively, for small and
medium size enterprises (SMEs) than for larger organisations. Small businesses often
face greater barriers in terms of the collective knowledge in the business of school and
college providers while the process of forming a link between a small business and
education providers can be time consuming (Scesa and Williams, 2008)
This discussion suggests that a key driver of engagement is likely to be the potential
gains to businesses from engagement (reflecting factors such as their recruitment activity
and turnover, their skill needs and the difficulties faced in securing young recruits with the
right qualities) while the constraints affecting engagement are likely to be those relating to
the cost of engagement. Where education institutions can reduce costs, engagement
becomes more likely. Ofsted visited 30 providers of work-related education and training
in 2009-2010 and that there were a range of benefits to both learners and employers. To
help realise these benefits Ofsted (2010) recommended that schools and colleges:
plan how to maintain any positive relationships built with employers;
involve employers in the training of provider staff;
use links with employers to inform curriculum design;
use employer-based mentors to support learners; and
hold progress reviews involving learners, providers and employers.
These recommendations were addressed to providers and Ofsted also made the
recommendation to employers that that they needed to take greater responsibility for
ensuring that provision was tailored to meet their own requirements.
5.4 Employer engagement with other forms of support for young people
The skills strategy for England, Skills for Sustainable Growth, highlights the UK
Commission’s ‘Best Market Frameworks’ model of driving up ambition and demand for
skills in industry sectors (BIS, 2010). The model offers a range of potential tools that
employers might deploy to this end, including minimum professional standards, voluntary
levies, procurement, human capital reporting and occupational licensing. In its recently
published Youth Inquiry, the UK Commission for Employment and Skills set out the
potential benefits of the ‘Best Market Frameworks’ approach, if adopted by employers.
The Inquiry identifies a key outcome of this model as the creation of more entry level
jobs, made possible through the articulation of clear work-based training pathways and
progression opportunities (UKCES, 2011). The Inquiry also recommended that the
35
Departments of Business, Innovation and Skills, together with the Department for Work
and Pensions, devise a simple and concise offer of support to employers encompassing
apprenticeships, internships and work experience placements.
While commendable, the recommendations set out in the Inquiry need to be considered
in the context of employers’ current awareness and commitment to support for young
people. Despite the finding that 91 per cent of members of the Chartered Management
Institute recently surveyed agreed that they had a duty to develop the skills of young
employees (Woodman and Hutchings, 2011), there is much less support generally for a
government role in supporting the recruitment of young people. The UK Employer
Perspectives Survey 2010 (ERP2010) found that employers’ views tended towards the
notion that government has only a limited role in supporting recruitment, with 51 per cent
agreeing with the statement that the role of government is largely irrelevant. Private
sector and small employers are more inclined to that view that public sector and large
employers.
Perhaps as a consequence of such a view, many employers are unaware of recent
government recruitment initiatives even though such initiatives could have provided them
with access to a pool of potential recruits. Only 15 per cent of employers surveyed by
EPS2010 claimed to be aware of the Future Jobs Fund and only 22 per cent of
employers in England ware aware of the Backing Young Britain initiative even though
these were two programmes specifically aimed at helping employers recruit young
people4. Similarly, Devins et al (2004) found that employers in two New Deal for
Communities areas were largely unaware of the support offered to local employers
through that initiative (some had heard of it but few could say what it offered).
It is clear from evidence such as that collected by EPS2010 and elsewhere that it will be
a considerable challenge to bring about change in employers recruitment practices
regarding young people. A small majority see no role for state support of recruitment and
remain largely unaware of policy and initiatives designed to improve the prospects of
young entrants to the jobs market. Bringing about improvements in the job opportunities
for young people will be about changing the ‘hearts and minds’ of employers and, as
always, that type of change takes time and considerable effort to achieve.
4 Both the Future Jobs Fund and Backing Young Britain were terminated by the incoming Coalition
Government.
36
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